


Remember, Remember

by BlueNeutrino



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Gen, Gore, London, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:29:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/pseuds/BlueNeutrino
Summary: November, 2029. Marchenko is in custody, Miller is in hospital, and MacReady's assault team are still in London. Adam's route to the hotel takes an uncomfortable pass by the London Dungeon.





	Remember, Remember

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna save this for Guy Fawkes’ night, but tbh I got impatient so have it early.

Marchenko is in custody, Miller is in hospital, and MacReady's assault team are still in London. In the hours since averting the attack there's been little respite, all efforts focused on keeping the Apex Centre secure while a final sweep of the surrounding tower blocks disarmed any remaining unexploded bombs. It isn't until the sky is beginning to lighten with the slow creep of a pale dawn that the medics confirm Miller will be alright, and MacReady, bleary eyed and ashen faced in the hospital hallway, tells Adam to go and get some sleep.

Mind still firing on all cylinders yet body running on fumes, Adam doesn't put up a fight. Before leaving, he trades his tactical gear for a trenchcoat, 'borrows' a scarf from the hospital's locker room, and takes a walk.

The crisp November air dulls the fatigue as he breathes in deep, for just a moment soothing the weariness pervading his organic body to bleed exhaustion into his limbs. It doesn't quite settle the broiling unease still turning in his gut, but he walks briskly and hopes that the chill will clear his head enough that once he reaches the hotel he'll finally grab the rest he needs.

Still waiting for the official stand down from Lyon, last minute accommodation has been wrangled in Southwark, less than five minutes from the Apex Centre where TF29 are still patrolling in rotas until the area is declared safe. From the campus of St Thomas' Hospital, Adam heads north along the river until he reaches Westminster Bridge, the tourist crowd already beginning to swell despite the early hour. His hands he keeps in his pockets, not because he particularly feels the cold in his augs, but right now he'd rather be less conspicuous; the wary, disdainful glances cast in his direction less frequent if people can only mistake his eye shields for sunglasses and look no closer.

A sour scent drifts up from the Thames, making Adam's nose wrinkle as the decrease in traffic fumes of recent years leaves nothing to mask the stench of festering pollution in the river. Sunlight dances on the water's surface, murky grey beneath the ephemeral flashes of diamond white. Distracted, he spares only a glance for Westminster Palace on the opposite bank, mostly ignores the Eye beginning its first rotation of the day as he crosses the plaza of attractions heading east. A queue has begun to stretch twenty metres from the entrance to the London Dungeon as he passes, a man dressed in the hooded garb of an executioner booming a sinister monologue to entertain the crowd.

"Who's in the mood for an execution today, boys and girls?" His question draws mostly nervous giggles and mumbling scattered along the line. "Any troublemakers here we'll have to send to the gallows?"

Adam doesn't mean to stop to listen. Maybe it's just bad luck, or the eye shields singling him out as the only aug in the vicinity, but attempting to cut through the line to get past draws the executioner's attention. Adam's next step brings him face to face with a man his equal in height, broader still in the shoulders and considerably rounder in the belly, yet nonetheless with thick, beefy arms that more than convincingly befit a man who regularly swings an axe. The partial hood leaves his mouth and beard exposed, yet the watery blue eyes are visible only through narrow slits.

"You look like trouble," the man grunts, and Adam feels a prickle of irritation. "Not going to have to find a place for you in His Majesty's Dungeon, are we?"

Having faced down Marchenko mere hours earlier, it doesn't even approach intimidating, but the burly executioner bullying a beleaguered aug is probably the spectacle the man had hoped for.

"Find someone else to torment," Adam growls back. "I'm not in the mood."

Beneath the beard, narrow lips twitch in amusement. "Just listen to him, ladies and gents. I should take your tongue for that, but lucky for you I'm in a good mood today. No need to bloody my axe with you when I have a better execution lined up for later."

Adam grinds his teeth, feeling the array of eyes turn onto him as he realises he's become part of the entertainment.

"You may have heard of him," the executioner continues, turning to the crowd but making a point of continuing to stand in Adam's path. "One Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the very Houses of Parliament you see o'er yonder. You know what we do to people like him?"

_How close you came to another explosion last night, _Adam thinks, but holds his tongue and hopes this will be over quickly.

"Only punishment befitting the crime of high treason—he'll be dragged through the streets all the way from the Tower of London to Old Westminster Palace where he'll be put to the gallows."

There's more appreciative murmurings from the crowd at the hint of the kind of entertainment they came for. The executioner's eyes turn back to Adam with a sadistic glee that Adam can't quite be sure isn't just part of the act.

"We'll string him up by the neck and he'll do a little dance for us, all that kicking and jigging while he struggles to breathe."

A clenched fist rises above the executioner's head and he tilts his head in a crude hanging gesture, and Adam finds he's grateful his own hands are already in his pockets as they ball into fists. He's itching to let a nanoblade spring from his arm, if only for show, yet an aug pulling a real weapon on an actor in the middle of a crowd of people is the last thing anyone needs.

_Augmented fingers clenched tight around his throat. A cruel, hard face at the end of a cybernetic arm. Legs dangling, twitching, blood in his mouth. A void in his lungs where there should be air, and Megan screams._

The executioner takes Adam's stillness as invitation. He steps closer and leers. "But, mind you, _not _until he's dead. When he's halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both, I'll cut him down, then I'll slit his belly and rip his guts out while he watches."

He punctuates that with a finger drawing a slash across Adam's abdomen, and it almost draws a flinch.

_Glass. Shards like a thousand white hot razors burrowing beneath his skin. There's blood on his clothes, pooling in the dip formed by his stomach, then he realises he's staring through a fleshy crevice to intestines bared beneath. _

The executioner's voice has grown distant. "And then, if he's really lucky, I'll chop off his head before I start chopping up the rest of him," Adam vaguely registers. "But if he _isn't_lucky, I'll quarter him alive. Take my axe and hack off each of his arms and each of his legs while he's still awake enough to feel it."

_The cold steel of an operating table against his back. Robotic arms sweeping out precise arcs above him, dipping down to inject and probe and drill as a whirring sawblade roars in his ears. The taste of ozone on his tongue. A heart monitor blipping rapid and uneven in the distance. Urgent voices. Failed anaesthesia. Adam tries to thrash his limbs, and realises he has no limbs left._

"Can you imagine what that's like?" the executioner says, inching closer still with a cruel smile on his thin lips. "Being aware of every second while somebody butchers you like meat?"

_Megan's still screaming. Adam opens his mouth and cries out long and loud until he can no longer tell his voice from hers._

Behind opaque black lenses, augmented eyes harden to a glare.

"No," Adam says coldly, "I can't imagine what that would be like at all."


End file.
